Also, a lot of the language was about patriarchal elevation of the 'perfect woman' ie. the it-girl, the playboy bunny. I didn't see the logic in that argument. If I like chubby chicks (I do) then do I get a 'pass' ? It also seemed to reveal a lack of understanding as to how men think about sexuality. The criticism, at the time, was that the 'it girls' were skinny models with unattainable body types. But the ONLY men I ever knew who found those people attractive were gay men, who followed the fashion industry. So the discussion was unfolding on an entirely irrelevant landscape. In. My. Opinion.
I've grappled with issue of objectification and what it means and I've evolved quite a bit since I was younger.
To answer your question above, no, I don't think being a chubby chaser gives a man a pass if the woman's beauty is all the man values in her (not you, I mean other men who can't seem to relate to women on a human/friend level and only see us as the other, here to have babies and do our own thing).
I first came across feminism in university and I was capitalizing on my youth and I didn't see a problem with it. I used to shake it off if my humanity was lost as long as I gained something but as I've gotten older I have come to really dislike it when I am not seen as an equal. It has nothing to do with attraction either, for example, one of the reasons I love my husband so much is that he seems to have that exact balance of finding me physically desirable but respecting me as a human being and appreciating me for my intellect.
So I guess speaking just for myself, objectification is when a man does not have the ability to see women as anything as 'the other', someone to have sex with and make babies with without having a deeper appreciation for her as a person. Unfortunately, that is still an issue in our society and although it goes both ways, I personally it happens a lot less on the flip side.
Of course this way of thinking causes conflict when it comes to
**** where the woman doesn't really even have a personality. I personally don't like any kind of
**** where women are degraded. On a logical level I know that some of the women are willing participants and even enjoy the degradation, but it saddens me that we live in a world where that type of sex turns on so many men. It's not far from
**** culture as far as I'm concerned.
On a personal level, becoming a mother to a daughter has changed my views a bit on
**** because sometimes all I see when viewing
**** is someone's daughter. I don't have an issue with sex-trade but
**** is forever and when I see young women in it who still aren't aware of the lifelong repercussions of their decisions, I view it a bit differently than I did when I was younger and all I saw a woman enjoying herself.
More on this, there is an interesting documentary (called After
****) where women discuss the trials facing them as they go on to have families and children and they are being recognized in their kid's school and can't escape their past. It's a bit different than having worked in private in the sex trade.
I guess for me what it comes down to is I respect the right of others to do as they want even though I don't enjoy watching degrading
****, and I prefer not to see very young women because I view them from a motherly perspective and I worry about their future.